Morinville’s newest candidate for mayor thinks the town needs more business in order to help take some of the tax burden off of residential taxpayers.
Carrie Foss, two weeks shy of her 46th birthday, announced she will take a shot at the mayor’s chair in the municipal election Oct. 21.
She said she at first considered running for a councillor’s position, but was encouraged to shoot higher by friends.
“Every time I said I was going to run for council, they said run for mayor,” Foss said. “It took about 10 days of talking to people, getting input and finding out what they wanted and really deciding whether I thought I could do it or not because if I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t have run for mayor.”
Foss lived in Morinville from 1999 until 2005, moved to Manitoba for four years, then returned to Morinville in 2009. During her first six years in town, she worked as a realtor and served as president of the chamber of commerce for four years. She has also served three years as Lions Club president. She now works as a service writer at Technical Automotives.
“I think Morinville has the potential to be what the citizens want it to be but I think there’s a lot of frustration that the existing council or some of existing council is not focusing on what the citizens want and I want to focus on what the citizens want,” Foss said.
Those frustrations are focused on four main issues – lack of business, taxes, lack of recreation amenities and lack of affordable seniors housing.
The lack of business in Morinville can be frustrating, Foss said, especially when it comes to retail.
“If I want a pair of pantyhose, there is one store in town I can purchase them at and they don’t carry the brand I like so I must go into St. Albert. And a lot of people find that frustrating.”
Adding more space for more commercial and industrial expansion will help alleviate some of the residential tax burden, which she said is becoming onerous.
“(Business) will be a huge tax pool we can draw from instead of residents mainly being the ones who pay for everything in the community.”
The town also needs some kind of recreation centre so that families have some place to go, Foss said.
“I have people saying, ‘When I start having children, I’m leaving town because there is nothing for them to do.’ We have a lot of different programs and different things children can do right now but a lot of people want a central location.”
She also wants to see more affordable seniors’ housing in Morinville so the town doesn’t lose people to other communities.
“We need to look at developing something in the future so we can keep those people,” Foss said.
Foss joins Christa Naughton and Coun. Lisa Holmes in running for mayor.
